News

Moscow Officials Will Allow Neo-Nazis to March, But Not Political Opposition

(December 11, 2008)

Moscow city officials have granted the neo-Nazi group the Slavic Union
(abbreviated "SS" in Russian) the right to march in the center of town
on December 12, a public holiday, according to a December 10, 2008
report by the radio station Ekho Moskvy. SS leader Dmitry Demushkin
announced that he and a few hundred of his followers received
permission to march that day down Chistoprudny Boulevard, along with
members of Russia's leading far-right party, the Movement Against
Illegal Migration (DPNI), which has been linked to anti-migrant
violence in the past, and the far-right Eurasian Youth Movement, which
has used past marches as opportunities to chant antisemitic and racist
slogans.

At the same time, Moscow officials denied Gary Kasparov's "Other
Russia" coalition--Russia's leading opposition movement--permission to
march in the center of town, instead granting them inconvenient, out
of the way routes. This is a concession of sorts, since in the past
Moscow police have violently dispersed "Other Russia" protests, as
well as gay rights marches, or have stood passively by while far-right
extremists attacked opposition marchers.

United Russia's youth movement, the Young Guards, was also granted
permission to march. That organization has recently begun holding
anti-migrant demonstrations in an obvious attempt by the Kremlin to
exploit nationalist sentiment in order to deflect growing public
discontent in the wake of the global financial crisis.